Fish Like a Girl

There’s something I realized while in Montana: women fish differently than men. I don’t mean the technical aspect of casting and drifting, I mean in the way we approach the entire experience.

I’ve fished with my beau Robbie my entire fishing career, and he is production-driven no matter where we are. He wants to catch fish. When we’re on the river, he has been known to say, “Jillian, if this raft is in the water, there had better be a line out.” I thought this was just his way of fishing, but then I started talking to other girls about it and it turns out this is generally the male way of fishing. For women, in general, it’s about trying to catch fish, but it’s also about relaxing, watching wildlife, dropping anchor to watch herons build their nests, swimming, and collecting rocks on the gravel bars.

Yes, I fish like a female and as it turns out, there’s a tribe of female anglers who have been waiting to claim me for what I am. We women fish to catch fish, but also to be immersed in the natural world and to dawdle there a bit, between casts, between catches, to enjoy the wind and the sunshine; we want to baptize ourselves in the elements, drift in and out of a sense of wonder, pause, look up from our fly line where it floats in the water and feel it all. We want to celebrate. We want to ponder the meaning and mystery of life.

We want men to enjoy fishing with us and we want to celebrate with men, as we fish, and share with them the fullness of the joy we feel when we’re on the water.

This is what we found ourselves doing on the river one day, six of us gals in our boats, truly reveling in the magic of the river, enjoying the way we all delighted in the world around us and cheering like a pom-pom squad in short skirts when anyone caught a fish or had a bump or a bite—no matter the fish, no matter the success or failure, we did it with the fullness of joy.

In short, we don’t want to fish like men (though I sometimes say I do when I’ve been reading a lot of Hemingway), we want to fish like women. We want to do it our way and still fit into a lifestyle and world that has always been dominated by affluent white men. We want to have a place there and we want it without having to compromise how we go about doing it and experiencing it. We want men to enjoy fishing with us and we want to celebrate with men, as we fish, and share with them the fullness of the joy we feel when we’re on the water. Be prepared to have a great time, guys, we might even shotgun a beer or two while we’re with you.

In short, I am a girl and I like to fish. If you are a girl and you like to fish, I want to fish with you some day. If you’re a guy and you like to fish, I want to fish with you too, and hopefully you’ll delight in the fact that I fish like a girl.